


The Flowers of the Cemetery

by punkrockloser



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Background Relationships, Cemetery, Fluff, Good Parent Grisha, M/M, Non-Chronological, Pastel Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Snapshots, Strangers to Lovers, a little bit, but it still makes sense, eren volunteers at a cemetery, levi visits frequently, like marco/jean, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 11:23:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9321302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockloser/pseuds/punkrockloser
Summary: The third time Eren meets Levi, he learns his name.A story about mourning.





	

The third time Eren meets Levi, he learns his name.

He’s been at the cemetery for over an hour now, loping back and forth between the plots and keeping up the care when he saw the necessity, and still the man has yet to show up. Therefore, he uses the open opportunity to head to the stone marked _Kuchel_ and tend to the flower left there two days ago, when the once-lonesome plot had gained a new visitor.

It is as he is just tipping the pail back from showering the freshly-planted tulip that Eren hears the voice he has quickly grown to recognize.

“I thought I said I didn’t need you to water that.”

Eren turns to look at him with a calm smile etched upon his face. The man is as nicely dressed as ever, the only sense of informality behind his slacks and suit coat being the loosened celadon tie that flutters against his chest in the hot breeze. He reaches a hand up to push back strands of jet black hair that have fallen in front of his eyes, eyes that send a stormy glare Eren’s direction.

“And if I don’t, the summer heat will dry it out,” Eren explains, as he had to this man once before. He’d never gotten a reason for the disregard to the flower the man had brought on his first visit, but he hadn’t thought to pry. “Just let me do my job, alright?” he asks in as nice a tone as he can muster.

The man huffs out a breath and some muttered words so low that Eren can’t catch them, then, “Whatever, just, I’m not supposed to be paying you for this shit, am I?”

Eren wants to laugh at the absurdity of such a thought, but reigns it in. He doesn’t know if it’s the cold demeanor or the perpetually pissed-off visage, but he doesn’t think it a good idea to laugh at this man, considering the circumstances. Instead, his smile widens just slightly as he answers, “Of course not, sir.”

“Don’t—do that anymore. Just Levi, sir makes me feel fucking old.”

“Alright,” Eren agrees, and moves on to the other plots.

Levi isn’t there when he makes one final round before heading back to the church to jot down his time of leave, but Eren really hadn’t expected him to be.

[✿]

“So you’re really working at the cemetery this summer?”

Eren hands over the bills to cover his late lunch consisting solely of a large waffle cone topped with a chanced mix of strawberry and pistachio to Jean’s awaiting palm, his friend leaning back into the air conditioned ice cream stand and fishing for change in the register, before answering, “Not working. Volunteering.”

A dime and three pennies make their home in Eren’s empty pockets.

“You’re not even getting paid? That’s depressing,” Jean says while wiping down the overhanging counter with a damp rag pulled from the side of the cash box. Eren can feel the faint gust of cool air from the open window of the stand and envies Jean for finding somewhere with a fan to work, but he’s at the very least thankful for the provided shade from the small, pink and yellow awning.

“It’s not so bad,” he reasons. “Kinda quiet most of the time, though.”

Jean snorts. “Well no shit, it’s a _graveyard._ Dead people don’t normally speak.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

The flavor combination is actually pretty decent, but he could do without the putrid color of melted pink and green running together down the side of his cone. The heat is doing absolutely nothing in helping keep the dripping ice cream off his fingers, either, and he snags a few napkins from their holder on the corner of the counter to wipe himself clean.

“Anyone ever visit?”

Eren licks his lips and meets Jean’s eyes. They’re innocent and waiting.

“Yeah.”

[✿]

It’s on days like these, when the sun beats down without the helpful shade of clouds and the air decides to remain still and stifling, that Eren wishes his town had a pool. Or a pond, river, _something_ that could curtail the sweat that sticks his hair to his forehead and the back of his neck. He has half a mind to dump his watering pail over himself instead of the flowers, but he knows how selfish that would be.

He catches the leftover drips from the faucet jutting from the brick side of the storage building and rubs his palms together, cooling them only slightly, before picking up the faded blue pail and heading to the far back corner of the cemetery to start off his rounds.

The pail gets refilled four times before Eren is finished with the long chore of watering flowers recently planted as well as patches that have been growing, long forgotten, for years. Nobody visits, but his thoughts are filled more with the need to wash the sweat off with a cold spray than any worries he may have.

[✿]

The first time Eren meets Levi, the man only says one word to him.

A couple of weeks have passed since Eren had begun volunteering at the cemetery for the summer, and the only thing he’s had to do besides tidy up the detached storage room is make sure to water the flowers families leave at the graves.

It confuses him at first, because he thought that the kinds of bouquets left at graves were all ones that have been cut, roots gone, but he hadn’t realized that most of the plots are decorated in tiny patches of planted flowers. There are some cut and tied bouquets withering in front of stones or resting in dried-out vases, and he throws those out first, but otherwise the cemetery is spotted with miniscule flower gardens.

He decides he likes it.

After those couple weeks of silent wandering through the rows of headstones, Eren has given up on thinking anyone from town will actually come by and visit. That is, until motion from the front gate catches his attention one clouded day, and a lone figure enters the property. They don’t look to have seen him, and immediately turn their back on him and begin heading down the path that leads to the family plots, but Eren can just make out a small pot resembling the ones sold at the street market in their hands.

A single white tulip sprouts from the dirt.

He’s curious, of course, as he doesn’t recognize the figure based on what he can see from this distance, and if he had been back in the city for university then it wouldn’t have been so unusual, but in the small population of his hometown it is fairly interesting to find an unfamiliar face. He checks himself, though, leaving whoever it is to round the corner of the path and exit from view without intervening. If a stranger had the gall to interrupt _him_ while he was visiting a potentially important grave, he wouldn’t be very happy, and he doubts this person to be any different.

So Eren continues his work, keeping his unhurried pace until his sneakers bring him around the bend and into the area of the cemetery reserved for family plots, the only thing separating it from the rest of the yard being a line of tall oaks whose leaves are large and green and create a light shade on the pebbled path when the clouds thin just enough for the rays of the sun to break through and touch ground. Eren can see him now, realizes it’s a man he definitely doesn’t know, standing on the crest of a small rise in the earth with his hands emptied and resting in the pockets of a pair of charcoal slacks, back still turned to him.

He takes a breath and trudges up the hill toward the other, the half-empty watering pail knocking against his right knee with each step.

“Afternoon, sir,” he greets once he’s a few feet from the man. He notices the tulip has been planted next to a headstone with simply a first name, but his gaze is dragged from the fresh flower to its owner’s face when the man jerks his head toward the sudden noise.

His narrowed, grey-blue eyes are glazed with moisture, but he doesn’t look to have shed any tears just yet. He doesn’t answer, either, merely dips his head in acknowledgment and turns back to staring at the stone in which _Kuchel_ is etched in the center.

Eren bites his lip and gestures to the new flower. “Need me to water that for you?”

“No.”

The low, watery voice holds little room for argument, but Eren tries anyway.

“It won’t survive in this heat without it, and it’s kinda my job, so it’s really no bother.” He waits for something else, a _go ahead_ , or another _no_ , or an acknowledgment of _some kind_ , but he’s just met with silence. It unnerves him after a while, makes him furrow his brows and let out a scoff, but he moves ahead with his chore in the end and leaves the man to mourn alone.

[✿]

“Where were you yesterday?”

“At home.” When Eren frowns, he sighs and continues, “It was too hot for me.”

Eren nods and tips water out onto the tulip, just a faint shower, and says, “Yeah, it was like I was in a fucking sauna.”

“Language,” Levi warns, taking his eyes off that same headstone to meet Eren’s own, a hint of amusement swimming in those grey-blue depths.

“Oh, so- _rry_ , mister hypocrite,” he drawls out sarcastically, smiling all the while. He’s about to move on to the rest of the plots, finish his few hours of work so he can head home and grab something to eat before hanging out with everyone else, but Levi’s voice stops him.

“What’s your name?”

He turns to look over his shoulder, and the dark-haired man is staring at him with impassive eyes. “What?” he asks, confused.

Levi’s lips twitch. “You left before telling me, even after hearing mine.” He pauses. “Kind of like you’re doing right now.”

Eren doesn’t know what to say, his eyes darting around and fingers fumbling with the handle of his watering pail. “I’d thought you’d want to be alone, I… well, don’t really know you.”

“Mm,” is all Levi says in response, and he drops his stare from Eren’s own.

When Eren realizes that the man is not going to cross that boundary and ask again, he says, “My name is Eren.” It’s only fair, he does already have Levi’s name.

Levi doesn’t take his eyes off Kuchel’s stone when he replies, “It’s nice to meet you, Eren.”

Eren doesn’t correct him, doesn’t say that this is the fourth time they’ve met, doesn’t really need to. He smiles, teeth and all.

“Nice to meet you too, Levi.”

[✿]

Sometimes, when Eren ambles through the barren plots, only a headstone emerging from the earth and the lack of colorful petals a reason to pass the area over, he feels a hint of sympathy for whoever is buried underneath his feet. Why doesn’t anyone come to fill the grave with flowers?

The sympathy is gone once he realizes what he’s doing.

His mother doesn’t have any flowers, and it’s a lasting reason to avoid her.

[✿]

Eren never sees Levi outside the cemetery, though he doesn’t really go out of his way to look for him. It’s not because he doesn’t want to, he truly does; he wants to know that the man is a real person, and not someone he thought up with his wild imagination in order to deal with the everlasting silences of the tombs surrounding him. He wants to, but he can’t imagine Levi being very happy with ending up searched for by a kid he hardly knows.

Therefore, when Levi finds _him_ outside the cemetery, he’s a bit shocked.

Eren’s sitting outside the ice cream stand Jean works at, though the two-toned brunet is not there today, nursing a bottle of water and playing solitaire one-handed on his phone, when someone sits down on the bench beside him. He glances up from his screen out of curiosity and finds angular features and tired eyes already turned toward and focused on him.

“Eren,” Levi says by way of greeting.

Eren looks down and asks, “Aren’t you hot in that?” That being the outfit of nice dress clothes the man continues to wear despite the growing temperatures of the season. He’d at least forgone the jacket, but the periwinkle dress shirt he’s donning today is still long-sleeved, and the tie is not loose in the least. Eren has a humiliating fear that he’ll get heat stroke if he doesn’t wear shorts at least one day this month.

“I’m sweating my goddamn balls off.”

Levi’s crude reply leaves Eren choking in laughter on the last swig of water he had just tipped back, and the resounding smirk on the shorter man’s face only reddens his cheeks more. When he gets his windpipe under control and caps the water bottle to set it on the empty wood of the bench, Eren just shakes his head and says, “You’re such an asshole.”

[✿]

The second time Eren meets Levi, he catches the man crying.

He hadn’t seen him come in through the front gate this time, so when Eren steps into the family plots and sees the short figure of someone he had believed was only going to pay their respects once and then leave for a year to return on the next anniversary of their loved one’s passing, he’s immediately intrigued.

Despite there being closer graves he really should attend to, Eren makes his way up the small rise, intent on changing the man’s mind over the ridiculous decision he’d made yesterday. He has his words already half-formed in the back of his throat, but they die as soon as he hears the tell-tale sniffling coming from the man.

“Sir—”

“Ah, fuck!” the man swears, turning more fully away from Eren to hide his tears, one hand coming up to wipe at the face Eren can’t see.

“Sorry, just, um… I’ll just…” he stumbles over his words like a child caught doing something they shouldn’t, which Eren finds quite fitting. “Are you okay?”

There’s a silence so drawn out that he begins to believe he’s been sufficiently ignored, but then the man growls out, “Go away,” and Eren does just that.

He’s not offended in the slightest. Under different circumstances, he’d be fighting back if some stranger spoke to him that way, but he shouldn’t have infringed on someone crying over the grave of a loved one. It was a shitty thing to do, and he feels the guilt settle in his chest when he remembers the sound of the dark-haired man’s grief.

Eren manages to catch him before he leaves the cemetery’s gates.

“Sir, wait!”

A pale hand stills on the top of the gate from where it had been pulling it open, and grey-blue eyes turn to regard him. “What do you want, kid?” he questions, sounding just as tired as he looks.

“I wanted to apologize for, you know, earlier,” Eren says, ashamed.

“There’s no need.”

“But I really shouldn’t have done that,” he continues, brows furrowing.

The man cocks his head slightly. “You didn’t do anything.”

“I—I interrupted your mourning!”

A tiny smile that doesn’t quite reach the eyes and only barely dimples the cheeks rests on the man’s face when he murmurs, “You didn’t know. So, really, there’s no need. Goodbye now.”

The gate creaks shut in his wake, and Eren watches him walk to his truck over the brick of the surrounding wall, the only vehicle in the parking lot beside his own, at a loss for words.

He spends the last thirty minutes of his service idling in the family plots and wondering who the hell this Kuchel is.

[✿]

The smirk slips from Levi’s face at his words, and Eren struggles to rectify it.

“Sorry! Oh shit, no, I didn’t mean it truthfully,” he says in a rush. “It was meant to be funny, I’m sure you’re actually a really nice person—”

“What?” Levi cuts him off before he can embarrass himself further, one of his thin eyebrows arching up in obvious confusion. “No, I’m an asshole, you’re right about that, that’s not—” He cuts himself off then, a heavy and exasperated sigh leaving his lips. “I actually need to ask you something.”

“O-okay?”

There’s a long pause, and he begins to think it may be more serious than he expected, but his fears are put to rest when Levi asks, “What’s the best flavor here?”

It takes Eren a very long moment to even understand the question, but when his eyes flicker towards the pink and yellow awning and he remembers just where they are, he almost wants to laugh. He whispers, “You’re so fucking weird,” under his breath, not caring if the other hears him or not, before stating, “I’ve heard strawberry and pistachio are pretty good.”

Levi makes a face that does have Eren laughing, and he’s just glad his water is already gone.

“That sounds disgusting.”

“What, you don’t like fruity flavors?” Eren asks, teasing.

Levi rolls his eyes, saying, “Not particularly.”

Eren pauses, thinking. Then, “Moose tracks?”

“Much better.”

Levi sits back down on the bench a few minutes later with a cup filled with the chocolate ice cream in his right hand and a pink spoon held suspended in the air by his teeth as they bite down on the tip of the bowl.

Eren snorts. “What, they were out of green?”

“I actually like pink,” Levi mumbles around another bite of his dessert. “So why weren’t you at the cemetery today?”

A frown turns Eren’s lips. “What, you were there again?” he asks, avoiding the question.

He can tell the man is caught off guard with his answering query, hand pausing from where he digs for a piece of a peanut butter cup. “I—was,” Levi says, stilted.

“Why? Who’s Kuchel?” He thinks that now, while the other is in a seemingly good mood, it’s okay to ask the question that’s been plaguing him.

Levi stares at him long enough to where he almost takes it back, grey-blue eyes unreadable, but eventually responds, “My mother,” and Eren feels like shit.

[✿]

When Eren heads out to work the following morning, a truck he recognizes as Levi’s is already waiting in the parking lot, and he has to bite down on a grin threatening to show.

He doesn’t even head to the church, as he’s supposed to do first thing to write the time he comes in at on the clipboard in one of the offices, just heads straight to the family plots, kicking up loose gravel as he does so.

His steps falter once he rounds the corner and doesn’t see Levi standing at the grave, and worried confusion sets his features. “Where the fuck…” he trails off in a quiet murmur. He makes his way off the path and up the hill, wondering if maybe the man is at one of the other plots, but he doesn’t see anything but flowers and headstones.

“What, you forget to do your job if I’m here?” a low voice asks from behind him, and Eren whirls around to face Levi coming up the hill toward him.

“Where were you?” he questions.

Levi runs his hand down his lilac tie and fingers the end of it as he answers, “Waiting at the storage house. I saw you come in and bolt straight over here like your life depended on it. Were you—”

“You were waiting at the storage house?”

“Um. Yes?”

“Why?”

“I was…curious.” It sounds like a half-assed lie.

“You were curious,” Eren repeats in a tone that shows he _knows_ it’s a half-assed lie.

“ _Yes_.”

“Oh? What about?” He’s milking it now.

“I was curious about just what the hell anybody needs a building that big for just to keep up care at a graveyard,” Levi nearly snaps. “But it was locked.”

Eren tries very hard to hold in his laughter. “Levi, I don’t lock the storage house.”

“I…knew that,” the man finishes lamely.

The laughter escapes in a joyed giggle. “Did you come just to see me?” he asks lightly.

Levi scoffs. “No, I came to see my mother, now get to work and leave me alone, brat.”

Eren just rolls his eyes good-naturedly and laughs harder.

[✿]

“Are you coming with us, Eren?” Mikasa asks from the doorway of his bedroom.

He doesn’t even raise his head from the cocoon of his blankets when he shakes it in an apologetic _no_ , and he hears his sister sigh before closing the door and stepping back down the hallway.

It’s the third year in a row that he’s stayed away from visiting his mother with Grisha and Mikasa on the anniversary, and he knows that the both of them are hiding their annoyance with his behavior, but he can’t be anywhere near her grave without the guilt setting him off in a panic attack.

He’s asked them not to bring any flowers, but he’s not sure they’ll listen to him this time.

After ten minutes of lying in bed and making sure his family truly has left the house, Eren gets up and heads out himself. The ice cream stand is a safe bet for being somewhere that won’t remind him of his mother, as it’s only two years old at this point, so he heads there. He doesn’t have money for anything more expensive than a bottle of water, though it doesn’t bother him. He just needs a distraction.

[✿]

“I won’t be here tomorrow,” Eren says as he walks with Levi through the rows of headstones and to the front gate. “Actually getting the day off, for once.”

Levi nods his understanding.

“Will you?”

“It depends.”

“On?”

Levi shrugs.

“Well,” Eren draws the vowel out, a hand reaching up to rub his upper arm. “Do you want to do something tomorrow?”

Grey-blue eyes meet his own in surprise. “I—sure,” he blurts, and Eren beams.

[✿]

Armin has never been one to willingly break the rules, so when Eren stops by his house before heading off to the cemetery early that morning in order to beg his blond friend into giving him discounted tickets at the theatre, he’s there nearly twenty minutes.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Eren.”

He huffs irritably, this being the fifth time Armin has said such a thing. “Please, Arm!” he whines. “It’s just one time, I won’t ask it again.”

Armin puts his face into the palm of his hand and mumbles, “God, if I get fired for this, so help me…”

“Ah, thank you so much!”

“And why do you need two?”

Eren can feel the flush rising behind his cheeks, and wills it away.

“Because I’m pretty confident that I won’t get turned down.”

[✿]

“You have something in mind?” Levi asks, having not stepped out the front gate just yet, attention turned toward him.

Eren nods. “Wanna see a movie?” he offers. “One of my friends works at the theatre, he can give us discounted tickets.” He very pointedly does not let it be known that he’d pleaded with the blond mere hours earlier into doing it, though.

Levi raises a thin brow. “Can he do that?”

Eren nods again.

“I don’t really need discounted tickets, as I _am_ an adult with both a job and the money that comes with it,” Levi says, and Eren feels his confidence waning. “But I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”

It takes a moment for him to realize that he’s agreeing, but when he does Eren’s grinning full-force once more. “Great! I’ll meet you there?”

Levi nods and steps out the front gate, and Eren waves him off.

[✿]

Over a dinner that includes just him and Mikasa, Grisha unsurprisingly having stayed late at the hospital once more, his sister decides it’s the perfect time to mention, “Jean told me you really like working at the cemetery.”

“Volunteering,” Eren corrects, as he had to Jean earlier that day. “And yeah, it’s nice.”

“And people do visit?”

He spoons more of the soup into his mouth to avoid the line of questioning.

“Please, Eren, don’t stay at home this year,” she continues, voice soft. “Dad and I hate to see you like that, and the day is supposed to be for remembering her, not holing yourself up in your room alone.”

Eren shakes his head, not meeting her eyes. “I can’t, Mika,” he says for the hundredth time this past week, broken. “Just…please stop asking.”

She hesitates for a long moment before relenting, nodding her head and going back to her own bowl. After a minute of tense silence, Mikasa tries, “So, who visits, then?”

“Well, only one guy, really.”

“Who?”

“I don’t think he’s from here, I haven’t seen him before a few days ago, and he didn’t even show up today. Name’s Levi, though,” he explains.

Mikasa hums around her spoon.

“Yeah, the last, like, three days or so he’s been showing up about the same time I’m there,” he goes on. “Always visits the same grave, of course, though I don’t know anything about it except for the name. Kuchel. Ring any bells?”

When his sister shakes her head, Eren sighs long and low.

“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says. “He seems pretty alright, anyway. Doesn’t talk too much, and I even caught him crying the day before last, which I feel pretty shitty about actually, but he’s nice enough I guess. Brought a flower with him the first day and even planted it next to the headstone, but didn’t like when I tried to water it, which was pretty weird seeing how fucking hot it is day and night, but I got him to come around yesterday about the whole thing. He’s short, which is hilarious but not enough for me to make a comment about it, and he’s always dressed in these fancy suits and dress clothes—”

“You sound enamored,” Mikasa cuts him off, eyes bright and smile teasing.

Eren spouts off aborted sounds of protest before finally getting out, “I’m not _enamored_.”

Light peals of laughter drown out anything else he tries to say, and Eren eventually succumbs to his sister’s goading and finishes his dinner with a permanent blush.

[✿]

The first thing Eren says when he meets Levi outside the only theatre in town is, “Holy shit you’re wearing shorts,” which really isn’t his best opener.

The dark-haired man looks down at himself and back up at Eren with a concerned look. “I am,” he agrees slowly, as if talking to a child.

“I just didn’t think you owned anything other than suits!” Eren defends himself as they step up to the counter. When he turns to address Armin on the other end of the glass and finds someone else sitting in his place, though, his eyes grow wide. “Oh, excuse me, is Armin here today?” he asks the older woman, a face he recognizes as someone Armin’s grandfather had gone on a handful of dates with a few years ago.

She shakes her head. “No, he called in sick this morning,” she explains.

“That little…” Eren growls under his breath, knowing full well Armin would never call in sick unless it was some serious illness plaguing him, and if _that_ ever happened then he would be one of the first people to know.

He turns to Levi with a guilty smile. “So Arm kinda skipped out on me today, which means I can’t get that discount,” he discloses. It also means he won’t be able to pay for both tickets, but he’s pretty sure the man has already figured that out.

Levi looks highly unimpressed, and Eren wants to crawl away and hide from that grey-blue stare. “I do have money, Eren,” he says. “What did you want to see?”

“I—uh, well, the new horror film is supposed to be pretty good, but you don’t have…to…” the weak protest dies on his lips when Levi slips the bills through the gap in the window of the teller and asks for two tickets to the movie himself, and Eren feels like a right ass.

“Of course I own clothes other than suits,” Levi says as he hands Eren his own ticket and leads them into the doors of the theatre, bringing them back to their earlier conversation. “I wouldn’t be able to deal with myself if all I had to wear were those fucking uncomfortable pieces of shit.”

Eren tries and fails to hold back his snorted laughter. “Then why have you worn them so often?” he asks. “Literally every time I’ve seen you, other than today of course, you’re in slacks and a pretty pastel dress shirt.”

“I only wear it when I’m visiting the cemetery. It’s more of a respect thing than anything else,” Levi explains. There’s a pause where he gestures to the snack and drink counter but Eren shakes his head at the silent offer, and so they head on to the teenaged employee waiting to collect tickets, before he presses, “Pretty pastel?”

“Levi? Shut the fuck up.”

Levi’s laugh is gorgeous.

[✿]

“Mikasa, I need some help.”

“Then stop pacing and sit down.”

Eren does, still chewing his bottom lip, the constant pulling of teeth on thin skin causing unsightly red blotches, but the couch is comfortable underneath him and his sister’s arm around his shoulders is even more so.

“What is it, Eren?”

He takes a deep breath through his nose and doesn’t look up at her dark and inquiring eyes, rather mumbles into the side of her arm, “If someone said yes to go to a movie with you, is that a date?”

“That depends on a lot of things,” she says after a moment.

Eren groans. “Like what?”

“Well,” Mikasa starts, pairing it with running a calming hand over and through his hair. “Your intentions, the situation in where you asked, _how_ you asked, how they understood it, and—you haven’t actually seen a movie yet, have you?”

“No, it’s tomorrow.”

“Oh, well make sure you pay attention to how he’s dressed, that’s—”

Eren’s amused laughter cuts her off, and he looks up to see her confusion written plainly across her features.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he deflects, swallowing the rest of his mirth. “Uh, so what, I just guess then? Because that’s a lot of information that I don’t really know how to answer right now.”

Mikasa hums, retracting her hand from his hair and pushing away from him to look him in the eye. “There is one thing you could do, to know for sure,” she says.

“What?”

“You ask him.”

[✿]

They’re sitting near the back of the theatre, seats together but very clearly keeping their hands and legs in their own spaces, when Eren brings it up again.

“It’s a respect thing? The suits, I mean,” he says, gesturing to Levi’s clothes that are definitely not formal today but still fairly nice. The white shorts are clean and the navy blue short-sleeved button-up that’s patterned in tiny white dots looks pressed and ironed. He’s even out of the ridiculous dress shoes, yet definitely isn’t donning any ratty old sneakers like the ones Eren wears himself. Mikasa had said to pay attention to what he wears, but he has a pretty strong feeling that the need to look nice is more of just a thing Levi does for his own self rather than any try at impressing somebody else.

Levi looks up at him and nods.

“So you’re superstitious?”

“No, where did you come up with that idea?”

Eren shrugs. “Just seems like dressing up to avoid angering the dead might be going a bit too far, don’t you think?” he asks innocently.

Levi’s mouth is half open and his eyebrows are knitted together, and Eren has to stop himself from reaching out and closing his jaw and rubbing out that crease with his own hand.

“That’s ridiculous. You’re ridiculous,” the dark-haired man says. “That’s not even a thing.”

“I don’t know,” Eren drawls teasingly. “I just think it’s a better excuse for suffering heat stroke. Like, if I was a doctor and I asked you why the hell you were out wearing a suit in this heat for hours on end, and you told me that if you didn’t then angry spirits would be after you and everyone you loved, I’d let you off the hook.”

At Levi’s blank look, he finishes with, “Just saying,” and turns back toward the screen where the previews are still rolling.

“Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Levi’s eyes are bright in the growing darkness of the theatre as the movie glows ahead.

[✿]

They’re walking out of town, heading back toward the neighborhood where Eren mentioned he lives. Levi tosses his empty ice cream container in the trash can next to the stand before they leave and puts his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

“My mother’s there, too,” Eren says. Then, in a belated answer and a near-afterthought, “That’s why I’m not at the cemetery today.”

Levi doesn’t say anything to that, changes the subject quickly but not without a hitch, and Eren doesn’t know if he should be relieved or disappointed.

[✿]

The movie’s good. Terrifying, but good.

Partway through, during a turning point scene, Levi's fingers find his elbow and dig into the skin, not hard enough to hurt but certainly not feather-light. When Eren glances over in his curiosity, the quick flashes of light from the scenes detailing paranormal horror show the man’s eyes trained ahead and blown wide from poorly-contained fear.

He hides a smile in his fist and turns his attention back to the film, letting the touch go unanswered but not unnoticed.

When the credits roll and the lights rise, Levi's hand drops back to his lap and his eyes follow it down.

“Did you like it?” Eren asks, unable to mask the slight waver of amusement in his question.

“It was good,” Levi answers with a sharp nod.

They stand from their seats and shuffle down the row and to the stairs.

“You gonna be able to sleep tonight?”

“What kind of—of course I will, you little brat,” he mumbles over his shoulder, words not backed by any real heat, and Eren understands that Levi realizes he hasn't been very subtle with his thoughts on the film.

Eren lets out a low, nearly-held-back laugh under his breath and pokes the back of Levi's shoulder as they head down the stairs and out of the theatre room. He's nervous, now. During the movie he hadn't needed to try and fill any awkward silences that could occur between them, as had been his thought process when planning the day. He had wanted to spend more time together outside their odd meeting place of his volunteer service, yet with something occupying their attention so the spotlight isn't solely on him.

It had worked up until now, but it’s only midday, and Eren's growling stomach is not helping matters.

“Hungry?”

Levi's stopped them on the corner of the sidewalk, looking anywhere but at him, and he sounds forcefully casual.

Eren stutters, "Y-yeah, actually, uh, but I can just eat at home, or get something cheap on my way.”

Levi is still not looking at him, eyes trained on a dandelion pushing up through a crack in the sidewalk, when he says, “If you want to do that, that's fine, but it doesn't bother me to pay for you on that account, either.”

“Is this a date?”

He wants to take it back immediately, because as soon as the moronic question slips through his lips on its own accord, Levi tears his gaze away from the ground and blinks up at him with grey-blue eyes clouded with confusion. Eren hadn't even meant to blurt it out so suddenly, but he knows if he leaves now without knowing then he'll never find out.

[✿]

The incessant ringing of his phone is what wakes him at four in the morning, just a few hours before he's scheduled to wake up and attend an exam, and he prays for whoever is stupid enough to call at this hour.

His hand pauses on the edge of the device when he reads the caller ID.

_Jean._

“What the fuck do you want?” Eren asks in a tone more exhausted than seething.

The blubbering and sniffling that meets his ears has him awake in seconds.

“Jean? What the hell is wrong?”

“M-M-Marco isn't…he's…” Jean tries, but Eren can hardly make out any of the other words through the waver of sobs in his friend’s throat.

Eren goes for soothing. “Okay, Jean? I'm gonna need you to calm down a little bit, alright? Just enough to where I can understand you, because right now you're not making any sense.” It could've been better, but it seems to do the trick.

Jean breathes in and out a couple times, deep. His voice is clearer when he says, “Marco’s in the hospital.”

Eren's blood runs cold, his grip stiffens on the phone. “F-for what?” he asks, cursing himself for stumbling over it.

“He got…fuck, shit. There was an accident, and… _god_ ,” Jean trails off, pauses, takes a few more steadying breaths while Eren waits in tense silence, and continues.

“H-he was driving home from my apartment, even though I told him it was way too late to do so, to just stay the night, right? But he told me he was going to be fine, he needed to get back home before tomorrow because he actually has things to do, and so I let him leave, like a god damned idiot.

“I got the call about an hour after he left…from his parents. They told me…shit, ah fuck, they _told me_ …that the hospital contacted them, and that I needed to come down, that he'd been hit—” he chokes back a harsh sob. “He'd been hit and he was placed in the ER and they don't know how he’s going to turn out.”

When Jean finishes with more wretched bawling on the other end of the line, Eren realizes he's crying, too. Silent tears flow down his cheeks and drip onto the sheets pooled around his waist as he stares at the blank wall in the darkness, and Eren asks hoarsely, “Are you okay?”

Jean’s answering question makes his heart twist and bind and shatter.

“How did you do it?”

[✿]

“Of course it's a date,” Levi says, then his eyes widen just a fraction. “Did you not mean it that way, when you asked?”

Eren shakes his head, then decides to follow the action up with words since it could be misconstrued. “No, I did!” he says too loud, too fast, too _eager_. “I just, didn't know if you thought the same.”

A small smile finds its way on Levi's face, a hint of fond exasperation in his naturally tired eyes. “I do. Think the same, that is.”

There's a quiet moment where the two merely stare across the small distance at each other, Eren beaming. Then, Levi reaches for and takes his hand in one of his own, and repeats, “Hungry?”

[✿]

He’s in shock. He knows that’s what it is, because he doesn’t think he can move, let alone answer any of Armin’s or Jean’s or Marco’s or even Mikasa’s repeated questioning. The phone has already slipped from his fingers, falling to a rest on the carpet of Jean’s childhood home, Grisha still on the line as a tinny, faraway voice calling out to him. His eyes stare at nothing, bone dry.

The tears don’t come until he’s able to see the damage himself, and his unrestrained wails echo.

[✿]

Eren has never felt his heart beat this fast before, and he’s afraid it’ll burst from his chest if it keeps this rate up.

“Dad?” he asks, grabbing Grisha’s attention.

His father turns from where he’s preparing dinner, brown eyes immediately focusing on the space beside Eren with thinly-veiled puzzlement, but before he can say anything Eren cuts him off.

“I want you to meet someone.”

[✿]

It’s through Levi that Eren realizes how much time he’s wasting avoiding his mother, and a few weeks after he heard the devastating story from someone else who understands the grief, he goes to the cemetery early one morning, on one of his off days, to talk to her.

He’s crying and breathing deep breaths before he’s even in front of her grave, and he has to steady himself before he can lay his eyes on the stone that reads, classic and unadorned:

 _Carla Jaeger_  
_Daughter, Wife, Mother_ _  
1978 — 2011_

It hits him that it’s already been nearly six years since he last saw her smiling and happy and _alive_ , and he falls to sit in front of the headstone as his knees cannot hold him upright any longer.

The one-sided conversation is stilted, out of place, and forced, and Eren wants to tear his own hair out at the waste of time this is, but then he remembers Levi’s words through the waver of his somber voice and knows it’s worth it.

He leaves after an hour, the sun coming to rise above the horizon, unknowing of how to feel.

[✿]

They spend too much time together, or so Mikasa says.

Eren doesn’t think there’s such a thing as too much time, and he’s never been in love before, but he thinks he might have found it.

In pretty pastel. In white tulips. In grey-blue eyes.

[✿]

It doesn’t surprise him that Levi refuses to stop visiting the cemetery despite Eren continuously mentioning the fact that his mere presence is a horrible distraction when he’s trying to keep on track with his work, and it surprises him even less when hardly anything about the man’s behavior changes after their relationship does the same.

Eren waters the tulip that’s grown tall beside the stone and leans down to place a kiss on Levi’s temple, earning himself a smile and a murmured greeting.

“Do you want to know now?”

Eren sets the dented pail on the ground beside his new sneakers and says, “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Levi very pointedly levels him with a guarded look. “Why I come here every day.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, but only if you want—”

“I wouldn’t have asked if otherwise, you know that.”

Eren smiles and nods.

“I’m making up for lost time,” Levi begins the long history with those words as his preface, strong and clear, yet by the end of his admission he’s clutching at Eren’s back as the brunet pretends not to notice the shoulder of his shirt dampening with tears, and the dry grass underneath their knees is uncomfortable.

[✿]

“We’re going to Jean’s tonight, are you free?” Armin asks over the phone.

“Yeah, Levi’s actually been roped up by his own friends tonight, so I’ve got nothing,” Eren explains. “When?”

“He said whenever, I just assumed eight or so.”

“Eight’s good. Who’s turn is it?”

Armin chuckles lightly against the receiver. “It’s yours, actually.”

“And that’s the only reason you want me to come, isn’t it,” he says, light-heartedly accusing his blond friend of subterfuge.

“We can’t get drunk if you aren’t there.”

Eren tsks and shakes his head, but agrees, “Yeah, sure, I’m coming.”

[✿]

Eren hasn’t slept one night at his own house this week, gravitating to Levi’s apartment after days spent together sweating under the harsh sun to do just the same by the light of the moon.

Afterwards, when the extra set of sheets are draped over the mattress and Eren’s lying on his back, chest overtaken by a hazy-minded Levi who wraps an arm across his torso and hooks a leg behind his knee, Eren nearly falls asleep.

“Eren.”

“Mm.”

“Are you awake?”

“Mm. Not again.”

Levi’s laugh ghosts over his bare skin, his slightly mussed hair tickles his chin when Eren leans up to gaze down at him with his own smile. “No, that’s—too much for one night. Just wanted to hear you.”

“You’re such a sap,” Eren whispers, moving his hand from where it rests at the small of Levi’s back to card his fingers restlessly through the man’s locks, brushing some of the loose and still-wet strands away from his forehead. “What have you done with my Levi?”

Levi kicks him with his sharp heel, and Eren groans in over-exaggerated pain before laughing and pulling Levi up level with his eyes to kiss him deeply.

[✿]

Mikasa drags him over to Jean’s house closer to nine than eight, and the others are already there, clearly having been waiting for him.

“Oh, finally!” Jean whines and cracks open a can of whatever choice beer Eren won’t be partaking in tonight. Armin and Marco follow shortly after.

Eren laughs at his friends’ expense and fakes an apology, knowing not one of them is actually angry with his late arrival, and heads to the kitchen to grab himself a bottle of water instead. Being it his round to stay sober tonight, he’ll have to have something occupying his hands, otherwise the risk of finding himself grasping a can of ruddy alcohol will be too great.

He turns the corner back into the living room and flops down on the old and battered couch next to Marco, playfully slipping his arm behind the freckled brunet just to antagonize Jean and relenting his hold with another laugh only when Marco stands up himself and placates his angry boyfriend.

[✿]

“Where are we going?” Eren asks while leaning out the passenger side window like a dog in the wind.

Levi leans over the center console and tugs at the collar of his tee to pull him back inside the truck, saying, “Not anywhere if you keep doing that.”

“We’re so high up!”

Levi’s low laugh has him smiling, but his gaze remains fixed on the pavement of the street as the too-large tires cruise along quickly atop it. “That’s because you’re so used to your tiny-ass fusion,” he comments good-naturedly. “Meanwhile, me.” He gestures with a sweep of his arm at the view ahead of them.

“I might get me one of these some day,” Eren concedes on a whim, knowing full well he would never be able to get used to driving something so massive.

“You couldn’t handle it,” is Levi’s goading response, but Eren dismisses it.

“So where are we going, then?” he asks once more, rolling up his window to show he definitely isn’t going to continue sticking his head out. “I mean you’ve held out telling me this long, but having me pack my swimsuit and ask off service for a few days is just plain rude if I don’t know what’s going on.”

He doesn’t get an answer right away, unsurprisingly, and they drive for a few moments in silence, passing up trees and buildings as they make their way out of the small town. Eren childishly waves at the cemetery as they pass that, too. Levi leads them through a few winding roads and takes an on-ramp to the highway before he finally answers, “It’s fucking hot, you wanted to swim, so that’s where we’re going.”

Eren’s intrigue has him shouting, “Holy shit please tell me we’re going where I think we’re going!”

“Just don’t drink the water and keep the sand out of your ass.”

[✿]

Levi sends him a text at ten, a little over an hour after Eren had sat down on the couch and made his home in the crook of it, saying how he’s heading home from the party with his own friends and he’ll message him when he gets there. Eren sends back a block of emojis that he knows the man will understand but abhor.

The party isn’t wild—far from it, really. It can hardly even be called a party, as all everyone ever does is drink a few cans of cheap beer and talk shit about each other, laughing all the while and knowing none of them truly mean it. Eren’s having a blast witnessing it all from his sober point of view, the one redeeming aspect of being the designated dry, and the only thing that brings him back to the present after losing track of time with his friends is the reminder that it’s been nearly forty-five minutes since his last conversation with Levi, and the man hasn’t responded in turn.

[✿]

“You talked to your mother today?” Levi asks, incredulous.

Eren nods, tightening his arm around the man and pulling him closer into his side. “I also told Dad and Mikasa that the next anniversary I’ll come with them, and I’m…gonna bring some flowers for her,” he admits.

Levi pushes off him to lean up, press a firm kiss to his lips, and announce with such vehemence, “I’m so proud of you.”

[✿]

The call comes not long after his realization that it’s been too long. The fact that Grisha’s name comes up on the screen doesn’t help matters in the slightest.

“Dad?” Eren asks as he presses the phone to his ear and steps away for a moment from his rowdy bunch of friends, and he’ll deny it to the day he dies that his voice comes out underneath a waver of worry.

Grisha takes a deep breath and says, “I think you should come down here, Eren.”

“W-why? What’s wrong?” He knows what’s wrong, he knows. This type of coincidence doesn’t just _happen_.

“Just…it’s not looking good, and I need you to come down.”

His friends thankfully aren’t drunk yet, for when they notice that something is terribly wrong they surround him with quick questions concerning his still stature and frozen gaze on the mangy carpet, and when Mikasa picks up the phone that’s fallen to the floor and exchanges words with Grisha she grabs his upper arm and tugs him to the front door.

The drive is horribly, gut-wrenchingly silent, and Eren’s grip on the door handle is white-knuckled and his heart racing and he can’t seem to breathe.

His phone remains silent for days afterward, and he never does end up hearing back from Levi.

[✿]

Eren says it first, like he knew he would.

He wakes up in Levi’s bed alone, but the smell of breakfast leaking in from the ajar door calms his anxieties immediately. He drags himself out from under the covers, pulls on both boxers and the sweatpants he has kept in the other man’s drawers, and groggily shuffles out the bedroom and into the kitchen.

Levi’s standing at the stove in an oversized tee that covers his own boxers, the handle of a griddle in his right hand and a flat wooden spatula in his left, back turned to him. Eren takes the opportunity to sidle up behind him and wrap his arms around the man’s torso and nuzzle into his dark hair.

“I love you,” Eren whispers, his breath ruffling a few loose strands of hair.

And Levi doesn’t even pause in his scraping of the eggs, just turns to meet his bright green eyes and says, “I love you, too.”

[✿]

When Eren comes home for summers, he no longer volunteers at the cemetery.

With overflowing grief yet undying acceptance, he knows that the last time he met Levi, the man was finally able to see the mother he so missed.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://blatant-ufo.tumblr.com)
> 
> if anybody is confused by the timeline of events, please do not hesitate to ask!!


End file.
